“Oh, I think so,” said the doctor; “he’s got the temperature in his favor now”; for though the threatened storm had passed without rain, it had left the air much cooler.
The doctor mounted into his buggy and chirruped to his horse and drove off. He came again in the evening, and said they had better not move Easton to the hotel that night, left his prescriptions, and went away.
Mrs. Woodward and Rachel began to talk together about where they should put Easton.
“Put him!” cried Mrs. Farrell, emerging upon them where they stood in a dimly lighted group, with Gilbert and Mrs. Gilbert just outside the door. She had an armful of draperies of which she had been dismantling her closet. “He’s not to be put anywhere. I’m going to stay with Rachel, and he’s to stay where he is till he gets perfectly well. It would kill him to move him!” The women were impressed, and looked to see conviction in Gilbert’s face.
“It would kill him to keep him where he is, Mrs. Farrell,” said Gilbert, dryly. “A man can’t stand too much kindness in his sensitive state. You must have some regard for his helplessness. He would never let you turn out of your room for him in the world; and if you try to make him it will simply worry him to death. It’ll be gall and wormwood to him, anyway, to think of the trouble he’s given. You must have a little mercy on him.”
Gilbert had to make a long fight in behalf of his friend; he ended by painting Easton’s terrors of a scene when they were coming toward the farmhouse from the glen.
Opinion began to veer round to his side. “Well, well,” cried Mrs. Farrell, passionately, “take him away from me—take him where you will! You let me do nothing for him; you think him nothing to me!”
“If he could stay where he is for the night,” said Mrs. Woodward, “he could have Mrs. Burroughs’s room to-morrow; she’s going to the seaside and won’t want it any more.”
This matter-of-fact proposal seemed so reasonable that it united the faltering opposition, and Mrs. Farrell had to give way. In their hearts, no doubt, all the women sighed over the situation’s loss of ideality. At parting, Mrs. Gilbert took Mrs. Farrell’s hand and went so far as to kiss her. “I don’t think you need be anxious,” the older woman said. “The doctor says he needs nothing but care and quiet, and he’ll be well again in a few days. Even now I can’t help congratulating you. I didn’t know matters had gone so far—so soon. My dear,” she added, after a little hesitation, “I’m afraid I haven’t quite done you justice. I thought—excuse my saying it now—I thought perhaps you were amusing yourself. I beg your pardon in all humbleness.”
“Oh don’t, don’t, Mrs. Gilbert!” cried Mrs. Farrell, and cast her arms about her neck, and sobbed there. She went to Rachel’s room, and changed her dress for a charming gown in which she could just lie down and jump up in an instant. She bound her hair in a simple knot, and when she came back to her own room with her lamp held high and shaded with one hand, she looked like a stylish Florence Nightingale with a dash of Lady Macbeth.